Monday, November 15, 2010

Why Are We Meddling in Iraq Elections?

A couple of days ago, Barack Obama tried to dictate part of the outcome of the Iraqi elections. That sounds a bit like something George Bush would have done. Fortunately, the Iraqis told him to go fly a kite.
The Washington Times reports that:

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, one of America's closest allies in the country, has rebuffed the personal request of President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to relinquish his post as Iraqis form a new government in Baghdad.

Last Saturday, Mr. Obama phoned Mr. Talabani and asked him to give up the seat he has held since 2005 so that Mr. Allawi could be Iraq's president, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials familiar with the diplomacy. Mr. Obama on Saturday also urged the president of the Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, to accept Mr. Allawi in the role of the presidency.

Why can't we leave them alone? It probably has something to do with the fact that we can't leave Iran alone either.

Since late summer, U.S. officials had been trying to get Mr. al-Maliki and Mr. Allawi to share power in the government because neither man's party won the majority of votes. But Mr. al-Maliki's Rule of Law party ultimately formed an alliance with the Kurds and another Shiite bloc with ties to Iran known as the Iraqi National Alliance.

Did you really think that US foreign policy would change very much when Obama replaced Bush as president? Neither did I.

Let's let Iraqis govern Iraq and stop thinking of them as incapable of taking care of themselves. This American Superpower Superiority Complex has got to go.